Build query string for System.Net.HttpClient get

c# .net http
NeoDarque picture NeoDarque · Jun 13, 2013 · Viewed 192.8k times · Source

If I wish to submit a http get request using System.Net.HttpClient there seems to be no api to add parameters, is this correct?

Is there any simple api available to build the query string that doesn't involve building a name value collection and url encoding those and then finally concatenating them? I was hoping to use something like RestSharp's api (i.e AddParameter(..))

Answer

Darin Dimitrov picture Darin Dimitrov · Jun 13, 2013

If I wish to submit a http get request using System.Net.HttpClient there seems to be no api to add parameters, is this correct?

Yes.

Is there any simple api available to build the query string that doesn't involve building a name value collection and url encoding those and then finally concatenating them?

Sure:

var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty);
query["foo"] = "bar<>&-baz";
query["bar"] = "bazinga";
string queryString = query.ToString();

will give you the expected result:

foo=bar%3c%3e%26-baz&bar=bazinga

You might also find the UriBuilder class useful:

var builder = new UriBuilder("http://example.com");
builder.Port = -1;
var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(builder.Query);
query["foo"] = "bar<>&-baz";
query["bar"] = "bazinga";
builder.Query = query.ToString();
string url = builder.ToString();

will give you the expected result:

http://example.com/?foo=bar%3c%3e%26-baz&bar=bazinga

that you could more than safely feed to your HttpClient.GetAsync method.

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